The invention is concerned with apparatus for the metering and dispensing of products comprising small articles, particulate material or the like from a supply thereof.
It is frequently required in industrial processes producing a supply of small articles, components, particulate material or even tablets or capsules in the pharmaceutical industry, for the product to be measured in more or less exact, pre-determined quantities, for example, for packaging prior to distribution.
It has been proposed, in the case of small articles produced say, in thousands or millions, to simplify their allocation into packages of, say, twelve or twenty, not by counting them but by weighing the products fed to a dispenser and when the desired weight has been so fed, causing a stop to become operative to separate the weighed products from the supply, ready for passage to a packaging station. This method, while reasonably satisfactory with certain products, is nevertheless prone to inaccuracies, being not versatile enough to cope with irregularly shaped products, and requires a great deal of maintenance.
It has also been proposed to monitor small products numerically, marshalling them into, say, single file and allowing a desired number to enter a chute or the like. Again, irregularly shaped articles cannot be aligned readily and tend therefore to jam in the marshalling apparatus, thereby resulting at best in short measure, or at worst in bringing the machine to a standstill.